The European Commission "is poised to spend billions in taxpayers' money on a satellite system, without any realistic assessment of its costs and benefits", Dunwoody said. "We must have independent and up-to-date evidence that proceeding with Galileo is worthwhile."

The project for a network of 30 satellites, to act as a replacement or a supplement to the US's own GPS satellite network, has already slipped from a planned completion date of 2008 to 2013 and could be delayed longer and go millions over budget. The UK is one of a number of European countries that make up the Galileo consortium.

But Septentrio, a satellite-navigation company based in Ghent, Belgium, is promoting the technology as a supplement to the US GPS system. As Septentrio's chief executive and founder, Peter Grognard, pointed out at a meeting with the press last week: "GPS alone gives access to signals from four or five satellites, and Galileo possibly seven, but, with both signals available, you can access up to 12." This makes the signal much more reliable, he said.

The solution offered by Septentrio is to create a processor that integrates with GPS and Galileo for use in navigation systems such as those used in cars and other vehicles.

Along with others in the satellite community, Grognard had been lobbying Dunwoody and other UK MPs in the Transport Sub-Committee. He said that Dunwoody had "listened" to what he had to say, but would not elaborate upon that.

The issue now for the European satellite community is: if the UK stalls its involvement in Galileo, that may, combined with indifference from countries like Germany, kill the project all together.

Grognard />believes that, whatever the reservations of the committee of MPs, Galileo comes at a modest price. "We are talking about €1.5 for each European citizen for the next four years and that represents very good value for money," Grognard said.

Two of Septentrio's processors that integrate with GPS and Galileo for use in navigation systems

Colin has been a computer journalist for some 30 years having started in the business the same year that the IBM PC was launched, although the first piece he wrote was about computer audit. He was at one time editor of Computing magazine in London and prior to that held a number of editing jobs, including time spent at the late DEC Compu...
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